One of the most over-shaped and extreme golfing layouts we’ve ever seen, Wolf Creek was built on just about the most unsuitable site in eastern Nevada and the design itself was completely overdone to boot. Set down in deep valleys or high atop severe rocky plateaus, the course is located in Mesquite and features holes that plunge dramatically down into valley floors, squeeze up through severe canyons or tiptoe along perilous ridges. In one instance, at a long par three, you are required to carry a deep canyon and hit your ball onto an unreceptive shelf target hidden on an elevated hill some 100 feet above the tee.

Elsewhere some of the drives plunge more than 300 feet, and at times the fairways narrow to ridiculous widths and are protected by bunker shapes and mounds that are totally over the top and out of place. The aforementioned 3rd hole has to be one of the hardest and poorly designed par threes in golf’s history, especially as the site does get windy and coming up short could see your ball disappear forever.

Wolf Creek takes a great photo but this is really little more than hit and giggle golf. Club founders spent more than $3 million to build the course and, in our view, they would need to spend at least this amount again on marketing to convince the world of its worth.

In Volume 2 of The Confidential Guide to Golf Courses, Tom Doak published that:

“Here is a truly polarizing course. It was voted the #1 public course in America in an online survey; the spectacular layout among the steep and stark desert hills appeals to those who don't mind losing a sleeve of balls [or three]. But it is the sort of golf that makes a traditionalist want to run away screaming. Beyond just being unwalkable, it is the worst experience I've ever had to drive around – you feel like you're chained into a roller coaster, following a harrowing narrow path with your foot on the brake, through twists and turns and lots of speed bumps and high curbs. I can't rate it a zero because I do think someone should have built a golf course on this spectacular terrain –– they just shouldn't have built this course!"

The Wolf Creek Golf Club received a score of 2 out of 10 from Tom Doak, and a score of 4 out of 10 from one of his co-authors.